Here’s my top eight new features of the new release of the Watch OS:

h3. Native Apps!

With the original software release all of your Apps from Apple or third-parties had to have the iPhone to function. In fact, they were mostly resident on the iPhone and the iPhone was the workhorse. With Watch OS 2.0 Apps can be made by developers that are native to the Watch. This means that they can access things like the heart rate sensor, microphone, Taptic Engine and accelerometer.

This should mean some new exciting apps coming in the next few months that further expand the use of the Apple Watch.

h3. A New Face on Time

Tired of the line-up of watch faces? Mickey Mouse just not your thing? Well, there are a new set of watch faces to personalize. I now sport one with Hammerhead, my bulldog, staring at me. There are time lapse scenes, you can choose your own photo or even a photo album which will change the picture each time you raise your wrist.

h3. It’s Complicated

Some of the watch faces have little customizable boxes that you can set for things like weather, stocks, timers, etc. The new Watch OS opens complications to app developers so now you can add even more information to your watch face.

h3. Time Travel

I think someone at Apple must be working on a real Time Machine with all the references to time in their software but with Watch OS 2.0 you have a new way to look forward or backward in time by using the Digital Crown to scroll through your schedule and see contextual information like what the weather is likely to be on your trip tomorrow or perhaps a missed email from yesterday.

h3. Take the Red Line to Wrigley Field!

The maps app on the watch is great, especially when you are navigating by foot in a big city. But when you are in a big city navigating mass transit is essential. Watch OS 2.0 brings Mass Transit directions to Maps! It gives you walking directions to the nearest subway or bus stop and then after you get off it continues with your walking directions, tapping you on the wrist to turn.

h3. Good Night

I do not think I will use this much, except perhaps, while on the road. Watch OS 2.0 allows a Nightstand mode that basically turns your watch into an alarm clock and takes the watch face and moves it into the horizontal position.

h3. It Lives!

If you are one of the lucky ones upgrading to the iPhone 6s or 6s+ you probably know about Live Photos already. This is the cool feature that records a bit of video with a photo and when you press on the photo it comes alive with movement. Well, that works on the Watch, too, if you have the iPhone 6s or 6s+. It is like watching a GIF on your wrist. Just set one of the Live Photos as your watch face, press and watch the motion.

h3. eMail Reply

While you *should* be able to record a response to an email with the microphone the way that you do with text replies, you can reply to emails now. Short and canned is the description. You can choose from several customizable preset responses. You can create up to 20 and the signature will say “Sent from my Apple Watch” (customizable, too) so your recipient will know why you are so terse.

_Dear Friends,_

It is now officially autumn and while I do see a few trees with some color starting, the fall foliage season which draws thousands of leaf peepers to Vermont seems like it will be a little later than normal this year. We have had some unusually warm weather and not much rain so my guess is that it will be peak foliage sometime in the 2nd week of October this year.

Apple followed up the release of iOS 9 with the release of WatchOS 2.0 this week. I will go over some of the new features in the latest watch release but it may be a little while before we see the full impact as the most major upgrade is that the watch is now able to use native Apps and developers will be releasing new tools to make the Apple Watch even more useful.

It seems that iOS 9 is being adopted at an amazing rate. It was reported that in the first 3 days of the release over 50% of active devices had been updated and are taking advantage of the new iOS 9 features. The new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are shipping this week, too. Some shipments were delayed in Washington, New York and Philadelphia however, due to traffic restrictions related to the Pope’s visit this week.

The six-pack Chill Pill speaker special was so successful last week that we are going to hold it over for one more week!

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is a six-pack of our famous Chill Pill mobile speakers. These compact “transformer” speakers produce big sound in a small package and have a built-in rechargeable battery. Normally, these sell for $29.99 each but for this week only for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can “*get 2 black, 2 white and 2 Red Chill Pill Speakers for the cost of one!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001955

Downloading the latest Mac OS this next week is the easy part. Unless you start the download when another 2 million people are doing the same thing, Apple makes the upgrade process very painless. And of course, it is free, too! There are some steps you should consider as you prepare for El Capitan to make it a smooth process.

h3. BACK UP!

Yes, I am shouting! Back up your data all the time but especially whenever you are updating your operating system. We have talked endlessly about how fabulous Time Machine is as a tool to back up your data. DO IT NOW. Upgrading to El Capitan is a great excuse to make a fresh back up of your priceless data.

h3. Do you know who you are?

Do you know your Apple ID and the password? You are going to need that to upgrade. It will be asked for when you start the download and you will also be asked for it during the El Capitan and iCould setup. If you wrote it down on that little scrap of paper that is somewhere in your wallet, now would be a good time to find it.

h3. How Old is Your Mac?

Sorry, that old SE 30 will not support El Capitan so you should make sure that you know if your Mac will support the new operating system. Here’s a list of the supported machines:

* iMac (mid-2007 or newer)
* MacBook (late 2008 Aluminum, or early 2009 or newer)
* MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer)
* MacBook Pro (mid- to late 2007 or newer)
* Mac Mini (early 2009 or newer)
* Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer)

If you do not know your model you can go under the Apple menu and select About This Mac and if you are running Yosemite you will see something like this screen shot that will show you the vintage of your Mac.

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h3. RAM and Storage

The two mostly commonly confused terms in technology. Well, you need enough of both memory and storage. In the case of memory, Apple recommends a minimum of 2GB, however; Small Dog Electronics would set that minimum at 4GB. I think you will find your experience with El Capitan to suffer with only 2GB. If your Mac’s memory can be upgraded, now might be a good time!

Storage is also important. We always recommend that you have at least 10-15% of your hard drive or SSD drive free just for cases like this. The installation of a new operating system creates a lot of temporary files that need space to live before they are ultimately deleted by the installation. Apple says that El Capitan takes about 6GB and that you should have 8GB free. That is cutting it pretty close. I would recommend that you have a minimum of 10GB free and pay close attention to the 10-15% free space. Now would be an excellent time to purge some files and old stuff that you really don’t need – like that downloaded copy of the Sopranos last season.

h3. Are you up-to-date?

Is there a number in the icon of the App store? Have you done all your updates for the operating system and apps? Developers have been optimizing their Apps for El Capitan for several months so doing all those updates before you upgrade to El Capitan may make things go easier for you, too!